1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of controlling a joystick, and more particularly, to a method of controlling a joystick and preventing the joystick from enabling unwanted events.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A consumer electronic product such as a mobile communications apparatus, personal data assistant, vehicle navigator, MP3 walkman, and hand-held computer is commonly equipped with a joystick to switch pictures on a screen, scroll the pictures, and select items. Particularly in a mobile phone, a joystick has become a basic input device. The joystick on the mobile phone is commonly installed on a concave portion of the housing of the mobile phone so that the joystick does not protrude above the remaining portion of the housing of the mobile phone. But it makes a user difficult to manipulate the joystick and sometimes causes the user to mistakenly trigger unwanted events.
Please refer to FIG. 1. FIG. 1 is a front view of a prior art mobile phone 100. The mobile phone 100 comprises an antenna 101, a joystick 110, a direction indicator 120, a speaker 130, a screen 140, a microphone 150, and a plurality of input buttons 160. The joystick 110 is a five way joystick for triggering five different events including four directional events and a select event. The four directional events include an upward event, downward event, leftward event, and rightward event. The select event is triggered by depressing the joystick. Please refer to FIG. 2. FIG. 2 is a cross-sectional view along line 2-2′ of the mobile phone 100 in FIG. 1. As shown in FIG. 2, the joystick 110 is installed on a concave portion 201 of the housing of the mobile phone 100 so that the joystick 110 does not protrude above the remaining portion of the housing of the mobile phone 100. But it makes a user difficult to manipulate the joystick and sometimes causes the user to mistakenly trigger an unwanted event.
For a two way or four way joystick, triggering an unwanted event is unlikely to occur because the joystick cannot be depressed to trigger an event. However a five way joystick is the most common design, thus if the joystick 110 is not properly disposed, particularly if the joystick 110 has a soft structure and provides no hedge against an unwanted event, then the joystick 110 may be easily accidentally depressed to trigger an unwanted event such as sending a confidential message to a third party.
Therefore, as long as a joystick can be depressed, even if the joystick is only three way capable of triggering two directional events and one select event, particularly if the joystick has a soft structure and provides no protection to prevent unwanted events, the joystick is likely to be depressed mistakenly.
To avoid triggering an unwanted event, other prior art uses a stiffer joystick instead. But a stiff joystick is unpleasant to use because a user has to push or depress strenuously to trigger an event. Eventually, this may cause the user's finger to experience pathological changes. And the stiffness of the joystick may deteriorate to behave like a soft joystick. Thus the problem of triggering an unwanted event is not solved.